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Monthly Archives: April 2015

I. The Decay of lnformation
II. Icosahedron
Ill. The Incorporation of Constraints

The first movement of Algorithms I is stochastic music in which the melodic lines become progressively more dependent upon previous pitch and rhythm choices. The second movement is a complete serial composition in which all row permutations are used once each; also, rhythmic choices are least organized at its beginning and end and most organized in its center. In the third movement, controls of vertical sonorities, of melodic motion, of resolutions of dissonant chords, of rhythmic patterns and of cadential structures are progressively introduced.

All the music, both instrumental and electronic, was composed on an IBM-7094 computer. In addition, the sounds in the two tape channels were produced by digital-to-analog conversion on the Illiac II computer. Additional details concerning this composition are published in an article in “Music by Computers”, edited by H. von Foerster and J. W. Beauchamp, published by John Wiley and Sons. New York.

Obbligato signifies something necessary and Indispensable. The obbligati in Kagel’s organ work are, to that extent, its genuinely principal part, a kind of cantus firmus. They consist of tape recordings, preferably made by the organist himself, since they illustrate the acoustical background of his life. (In the present recording half of the obbligati were taped by Kagel and half by Gerd Zacher). These sounds on tape begin with falling rain, continuing with a running tap, a toilet being flushed, and the sound of a kettle boiling, after which water music we hear an egg-timer, toaster, and a morning news bulletin. This start of the day is followed by leaving the house and travelling by underground train; the sound of bells marks the arrival at church. Recordings from a Christening, a Wedding and a Memorial Service create the church atmosphere, also symbolizing further areas of the organist’s life.

Such musique concrete–in itself by no means obbligato–is put into its context by the strict musique abstraite of the Fantasia for Organ. This gives signifiance to the tape recordings by creating transitions between them, foreshadowing what is to come, and recollecting what is past. It gives musical continuity to the purely biographical tape recordings. The organ part takes the material of the obbligati back into terms of music in ever new ways. As the tape recordings resist such musical integration owing to their associative character, insisting on their own extra-musical connections, the dialectical linking of the two elements gives rise to a kind of musical “radio play”, in which the aural background to the organist’s intimate life penetrates Into the sphere of his official activities. [DG 137 003]

Next month experimental composer William Basinski will release Cascade and The Deluge, a pair of albums inspired by his latest tape loop composition. Cascade examines the same gentle, piano loop over a single 40-minute track. The release also comes with a free download for the otherwise vinyl-only The Deluge, which finds the same composition run through several feedback filters live at Issue Project Room in Brooklyn before blooming into an full orchestral finale. [Source]